This weekend, he brings the man himself out on stage in front of a crowd of thousands at Elsie Fest.

But the principle is the same.

"Obviously the fanboy inside me is beside himself, but the artist in me is so glad that I can now complete the circle of inspiration," Criss, a newly minted Emmy winner for his starring role in "American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace," said.

"My MO in life, my general thing that I think drives everything I do, is bringing all of the things I love together. Whether it’s things that inspired me, the people that I love, the ideas that I subscribe to — I have a kind of serial obsession of trying to put them all together for all people to enjoy and experience and feel the same kind of joy that I get from them.

Darren Criss accepts the award for lead actor in a limited series or movie for his role in "The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story." (Photo: ROBERT HANASHIRO, USA TODAY)

"That’s at the core of everything I do, why I play music, why I write songs, why I enjoy being an actor, why I’m a collector of and insatiable enjoyer of pop culture, it all has to do with wanting to share and create experiences with a group and be a part of this world and make people feel connected. None of this is for myself, I’ve just never been the kind of guy who needs to experience things so I can feel validated. I’m only validated through people outside of my body feeling joy and sharing something positive with each other."

Elsie Fest still growing

That obsession most clearly shows itself in Elsie Fest, a one-day music festival that brings together Broadway, pop culture and the stars of stage and screen who can unite them.

This year's Elsie Fest is set for Sunday, Oct. 7, at the Central Park Summerstage and will be headlined by Sutton Foster, Joshua Henry, Alex Newell and Criss, and feature Wainwright, Matthew Morrison, Grant Gustin, Jody Benson and the casts of the upcoming Broadway musicals "Be More Chill," "The Prom," as well as the movie musical "Anna and the Apocalypse." The West Village piano bar Marie's Crisis will return to lead festival-wide singalongs.

In its fourth year, Elsie Fest, founded and co-produced by Criss, has grown each year in scope and found larger venues as it went along.

But he says the best is yet to come.

"My ideal of the festival is not for many years. That isn’t to say I’m not extremely proud of where we started. I’ve always been a long game kind of guy, I’m not about putting all of my eggs in the basket first thing right out of the gate, you have to earn that and you have to grow and see if the organism can sustain the target that I eventually have ... At the end of the day, it all comes down to the great performances and a really great collection of people who represent different examples of musical theater in pop culture, not just Broadway but film, television, the internet and other places. We’ve accomplished that, so I’m really proud of the content that we’ve been able to present. My goal of the festival is a much larger experience."

Criss explains that Elsie Fest is on an "inverse trajectory" than lot of other pop, rock and culture festivals.

"For something as gargantuan as Coachella, where you create this huge experiential thing, art and brand activation and multiple stages, for people to really put themselves in a new literal or figurative place, you really hope that the community can grow within those parameters. You create a space to create community. We’re the opposite — the Broadway fan, the musical theater fan community is so vibrant and so engaged and so enthusiastic, it’s the other thing, where I want to build an experience that is worthy of said enthusiasm and kind of create something that makes it more than going to see a concert."

Back on Broadway?

Criss, who starred in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" on Broadway, says he pictures a return to the stage, but it may not be in the way you think — eyeing dream roles in a lot of straight plays and aspiring to bring a musical of his own to the Great White Way.

"There are so many things that I would love to do on Broadway. I think that people typically think musicals. I like to remind people — that’s something that surprises me in my life, that I do musicals or that people identify me with musical theater. That’s not some faux humility thing, I’ve been very outspoken about — yeah, I did musical theater in high school and as a kid, but it was never something I thought I’d be part of professionally.

Honorees and "Glee" co-stars Lea Michele and Darren Criss perform during the Family Equality Council awards dinner.(Photo: Kevin Winter, Getty Images for Family Equality Council)

"The reason I say that is because my idea of what I thought was more accessible was doing straight plays on Broadway. Even to this day, I’ve probably done more plays than I have musicals — you would have never heard of them, and yes they were in black boxes in college and in high school, but still, that was my thing, that’s what I have my degree in, for whatever that’s worth. There’s a huge list of plays that I would love to do."

"On the musical side — I always have the itch, but it’s probably become the itchiest in recent years — I can’t wait to write another musical. It gives me such joy and I love that chase so much because you get to flex all muscles. You get to be a storyteller, you’re acting, you’re a musician, you get to do all the things that create a world when you’re writing songs for a character. I really miss that and I have to get back to it. I’d like to come back to Broadway with something I’ve written. It's something that I’ve really, really longed for. I feel pangs of it when I see new shows."

His own take

And being first known for his Starkid Production musicals including "A Very Potter Musical" and later for performances that often offer a new take on Disney or pop music or showtunes, it only makes sense that the former "Glee" star always has yearned to put his own stamp on things.

"I see so many things in the world not as they are, but what they can be and what their potential is. I think there’s a much deeper thing to that in my life, deeper ethos that I sort of apply to everything in my life. The same as a line of Shakespeare — what makes great art is that they have infinite contexts that one can create for themselves. With theater, with acting, with inflection, with tone and pace and everything and motivation can chance a line to be 100 different things.

"Likewise with music, not only do those same variables apply to make something different, putting in different keys, different rhythms, different sonic palates that can create a different vibe. There’s so many ways to do a song that it’s just impossible for me not to consider all of those options and to find the ones that are the most interesting to me. And luckily enough for me, as a musician, I have the facility to create that. It’s one thing to conceptionalize, I’m lucky that I speak a dialect to bring those things forth. It’s another obsession I have, having people reconsider that which they think they know. Singing other people’s songs or certain characters, there’s a challenge of an audience reprogramming themselves and I really enjoy taking that on. It’s something that I’ve always liked, it has to do with this notion of showing many colors that you may not initially see or hear but are inherently there."